


i'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

by R_Gunns



Category: Kings
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:33:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1871502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Gunns/pseuds/R_Gunns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts, as all important things do, with a butterfly. </p><p>(Or-- A look at things to come)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Take me to Church' -Hozier

It starts, as all important things do, with a butterfly. Jack himself has never seen one, not those that are God-touched at least, so the sight of it flying a lazy path in his direction is enough to make him freeze in place. He knows now (and if he’s honest with himself, has done for a long time) that he’s not destined for a crown, kingship not a part of his fate, but still he holds his breath as it comes closer, faintly worried about its purpose here.

Because in time his hunger for the crown had faded, the same way his fury had, leaving him only with his guilt and shame, smeared in blood across his palms. He thinks that if he were a better man he’d repent for his sins, but he’s not and so he doesn’t. Instead he reads books from the piles that had been left in his makeshift prison, makes pointless small-talk with Lucinda, watches the endless films they’d been given (a nice collection of romance, mindless action, some porn -he guesses to help them in their endeavours- and not one film with a mention of war, or monarchy, or God. It’s impressive to say the least).

The rest of his time is spent thinking on the path that bought him here; not so much a path paved with good intentions as naïve ones; he’d been so obsessed with his father’s inability to rule fairly that he overlooked his own shortcomings. So he settles into his new life, aware that in refusing to have sex with Lucinda he’s condemned the both of them, starts to come to terms with the fact that there is no way out of this, not when he is and forever will be outside of God’s favour.

Which is why the sight of a butterfly scares him, a little. It’s been three months when it appears, floats in through the window on a warm breeze, the light catching on its wings just-so, fairly indicative that it isn’t just a normal butterfly (when is there ever with their family). Lucinda is first to notice it, the book she’d been reading falling to the floor with a thud, which makes him look up from his own book, sees her wide eyes and follows her line of vision to the window, where the butterfly circles for a minute, before heading in his direction. They both watch it in silence as it reaches him on the bed, settles for a split second on his knuckles (white, gripping the book tightly enough that he’s sure he’ll have paper cuts later) then flies back to the window, circles again and comes back to him. It does this a few more times, before the silence is broken by Lucinda, her voice wavering,

“I think it wants you to look out the window Jack.” And he startles, having forgot for a moment that she was there with him. Neither of them speak very often now; they’ve not much in common anyway, find no comfort in each other’s voices or presence (the fleeting love she’d felt for him had since waned) and so they stay silent. He doesn’t answer her, just sets his book on the bed and follows the butterfly to the window, looks outside and across the carefully tended to gardens and at first he sees nothing. He looks down when he feels the brush of wings against his hand, watches the butterfly finally still, settling on his wrist, and when he looks back up--

He barks out a surprised laugh, the sound echoing round the room, and covers the upward twitch of his lips with his hand. Because beyond the gardens and past the gates, where the city unfurls, a cloud of butterflies clustered together in a bright swirl of colour. The second he sees them they disperse, fly off in various directions, leaving behind them the silhouette of David Shepherd.

This is the start of things. He’s not sure though, where it all _begins._

-

Maybe it begins with a crooked smile and a whisper of breath across the palm of his hand where it rests in David’s own, the touch of lips to the very center and David’s self-conscious laugh when he says, without irony,

“I don’t know why I ever doubted you.”

Jack definitely knows why, has a thousand-long list of reasons why David should doubt him, should stay the fuck away from him, but David’s lips are soft and his hands calloused, and Jack keeps his mouth shut.

-

Or maybe it’s with anger in David’s eyes unlike anything he’s ever seen before, caused by Jack’s imprisonment by Silas of all things. He shrugs, awkwardly, tries to make it less than it was, but David has seen the way his hands shake and his pathetic need to leave every door open lest he be locked away again and besides, Jack has never been able to lie to him. So with David’s prompting he tells him, voice hard and eyes cold, what had been expected of him while he was trapped in that room. He doesn’t have to say why having sex with his wife was called ‘a fate worse than death’, knows he doesn’t really have to when he sees David’s eyes harden in fury.

He watches in something slightly more hungry than awe as David presses a hand first against Jack’s chest, and then against his temple, muscles rigid like he’s trying not to let them curl into fists, and Jack feels like he’s been gutted when David whispers ‘ _I’ll kill him’_ against his lips. They don’t kiss. Jack wonders, briefly, when his darkness had tainted David Shepherd. He thinks it must have dripped like oil from his fingertips every time he’d dared to touch David, and now David has begun to threaten _death_ with something like hunger in his eyes. Jack ignores the exhilaration that stirs within him at David’s words and leans away.

This might not be the beginning-- but it’s _something_.

-

Or maybe--

Maybe it begins with blood under foot, the dead body of a King slumped in his bed and-- when David rests his knuckles against his jaw, leans forward to press his lips against Jack’s, for the first time in his life, Jack can see the light of God in his peripheral vision, feel His touch settle gently between his shoulder blades and Jack thinks--

 _Of course_. _Of course this is my fate._ He finds he doesn’t care as much as he probably should.

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual- English person, so I try to avoid Briticisms but don't always succeed in spotting them all. All mistakes are mine.


End file.
